Israel on Monday freed nearly 2,000 Palestinians — including hundreds of terror convicts serving life terms — from its prisons as part of a deal to reach a ceasefire and release the hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Shortly after 20 living hostages were freed, Israel put 1,968 Palestinian prisoners on buses that departed for the West Bank and Gaza.

Among those freed were 250 security prisoners, most of them serving one or more life terms for deadly attacks on Israelis. They include a Palestinian police officer who joined in the notorious lynching of two reservists at the start of the Second Intifada in 2000, a Gaza resident who raped and murdered a 13-year-old boy and dozens of other terrorists responsible for a series of suicide bombings and other attacks.

Hamas said 154 of the prisoners were deported to Egypt.

At the same time in southern Israel’s Ketziot Prison, 1,718 Gazan detainees uninvolved in the October 7, 2023, massacre, who were arrested as unlawful combatants during the war, went free. Among the detainees were a handful of women and children.

Families of the terrorists’ victims, who were notified by the government ahead of their release, expressed intense pain and grief coupled with joy for the returning hostages and their loved ones.

Early in the morning, police and prison forces arrived at Ofer Prison near Ramallah in the West Bank to prepare the release of the security prisoners. Some 88 of the prisoners were sent back to the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Posters hung up on the outer walls of the Ofer detention facility read: “He who threatens a flood is drowned and wiped out,” referring to “the Al Aqsa Flood,” Hamas’s name for the October 7, 2023, massacre.

IDF forces could be heard using tear gas and stun grenades to disperse crowds on the other side of the nearby West Bank security barrier, gathered to celebrate the release of the prisoners.

In the hours leading up to the release, police and IDF troops in the West Bank and East Jerusalem kept a close eye on freed security prisoners and their families to ensure their release wasn’t praised publicly in Israeli-controlled territory.

Once reaching Ramallah, however, those returning to the West Bank were met with raucous celebration after the two buses arrived at a community center in the city. Palestinian Authority security forces had to move people away from the area to allow buses to pass.

Dressed in the gray tracksuits of Israeli prisons, some of the prisoners struggled to walk without assistance as they got off the bus and were met by a crowd cheering their return.

“It’s an indescribable feeling, a new birth,” 43-year-old Mahdi Ramadan, newly released, told AFP, flanked by his parents with whom he said he would spend his first evening out of jail.

Nearby, relatives exchanged hugs, young men in tears pressed their foreheads against each other — some fainting from the emotion of seeing loved ones again after years  in jail. The crowd chanted in celebration “Allahu akbar,” meaning “God is the greatest.”

As the security prisoners returned home, high-ranking terrorists were deported. Those sent abroad included Iyad Abu al-Rub, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander responsible for orchestrating three deadly suicide bombings in Shadmot Mechola, Tel Aviv and Hadera over the years 2003-2005. In total, 13 people were killed across the three attacks.

Also deported was Muhammad Zakarneh, a Fatah operative who planned a 2009 attack in which taxi driver Grigory Raginovich was murdered, and Muhammad Abu al-Rub, who in 2017 carried out a stabbing attack that killed Reuven Shmerling.

As Gazan detainees were transported back to the Strip on 38 buses, guards stormed one of the vehicles mid-journey after several Palestinians pulled the vehicle’s window curtains aside in a “celebratory display.”

Members of the Israel Prison Service’s Masada unit “stormed the bus, employed measures against those disturbing the order and immediately restored prison governance” without causing injuries, prison officials said. The bus later continued on to Gaza.

The detainees crossed into the enclave via the Kerem Shalom checkpoint and arrived at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza. About a dozen masked gunmen dressed in black, apparently members of Hamas’s armed wing, gathered at the medical center along with a growing crowd of Gazans, Reuters footage showed.

Some in the massive crowd waved Palestinian flags while others held pictures of their relatives. Fighting back tears, one woman who asked to be identified as Um Ahmed said she said that despite her joy at the release, she still had “mixed feelings” about the day.

“I am happy for our sons who are being freed, but we are still in pain for all those who had been killed by the occupation, and all the destruction that happened to our Gaza,” she told Reuters by voice note.

The final list of prisoners was disputed by Hamas negotiators up until the last minute and was altered several times as the group fought to free several key terror chiefs, including popular Fatah figure Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences.

Hamas and Israeli negotiators also agreed upon the transfer of “360 Gazan terrorists’ bodies” in the final decision ratifying the ceasefire deal.  It was likely the bodies would only be returned once Hamas had sent back the bodies of 28 slain hostages.

By Monday evening Hamas had started preparations to return four bodies.

The Israel Prison Service has not responded to a request for comment regarding the matter.